Flashback Friday

Spices & Seasons

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

From USA
Today bestselling author Caitlin Crews comes A True Cowboy Christmas,
the first in a sensational series debut about a cowboy, a farm girl, and the
greatest gift of all. . .

Gray Everett has a heart of gold but that doesn’t
mean he believes in the magic of Christmas. He’s got plenty else to worry about
this holiday season, what with keeping his cattle ranch in the family and out
of the hands of hungry real-estate investors looking to make a down-and-dirty
deal. That, plus being a parent to his young and motherless daughter, equals a
man who will not rest until he achieves his mission. Now, all Gray needs is the
help of his lifelong neighbor. . .who happens to have grown into a lovely,
spirited woman.

For Abby Douglas, the chance to join forces with
Gray is nothing less than a Christmas miracle. Much as the down-to-earth
farmer’s daughter has tried to deny it, Abby’s been in love with stern,
smoking-hot Gray her whole life. So when Gray proposes a marriage of
convenience as a way to combine land—and work together toward a common
cause—Abby can’t refuse. But how can she convince Gray that sometimes life
offers a man a second chance for a reason. . .and that their growing trust and mutual
passion may be leading to true and lasting love?

READ AN EXCERPT:

“Why would you try to
tell me that chemistry doesn’t matter? Of course it does.”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. But sheer stubbornness
matters more.” He heard the intensity in his voice, but did nothing to temper
it. “If people want to stay married, they do. If they want that marriage to be
a good one, they work on it and make it that way. It’s not rocket science. It
doesn’t require your online profiles. You don’t need to get matched on your
smart phone. You make a commitment to someone, then you keep it. It’s as
simple and as hard as that.”

He watched in fascination as her hands curled into fists at
her sides.

“I appreciate that you have experience being married, and
that gives you a platform to make sweeping statements,” she said, her voice
low, as if she was fighting back her own intensity. “That’s great. But you’re
missing that I’m not interested in the state of marriage in a general sense.
I’m telling you I am not going to marry someone I have no chemistry with. That
has nothing to do with me being stubborn, not stubborn, or insufficiently
committed. It’s actually all about the fact that I’m not staggering around in a
grief-induced daze, proposing marriage to people I’ve never looked at twice
before in my whole life.” That should have annoyed him, because he wasn’t
dazed. Amos had been a mean, unhealthy old man. His death hadn’t been a real
surprise. Gray wasn’t sure he was grieving him so much as the father Amos had
never been, and he knew he wasn’t crazy with it. But he couldn’t seem to lose
his grin, especially when he moved closer to her.

Because when he did, she lost that scowl. Her eyes went
wide, that cute flush brightened up her face again, and she had to tip her head
back to look at him. Not as much as some of the other girls he’d dated had, as
she’d pointed out. Gray liked that too. He didn’t have to hunker over her.

She was . . . right there.

He had an urge and went with it. He reached over and curled
his fingers around her ponytail, then pulled them gently along the length of
it.

And figured the chemistry question was answered by the way
her breath went shuddery.

But he didn’t end it there.

“If I’m following all this,” he said, his drawl low. Thick.
“You don’t actually have any objections. You think we maybe ought to date
first. You’re worried we don’t have chemistry. But at the end of the day,
you’re not opposed to the idea.”

“It’s crazy. And I’m worried that you’re crazy, in a
clinical sense.”

“If you agree to marry me, I’ll take you on a date or two.
If that’s what you want.” His hand was still tangled in her hair, and he was
close enough now that he could catch her scent. Gray breathed deep. She smelled
like rosemary. And something that reminded him of the pies she and her
grandmother had brought over the day after the funeral, warm and good. Right.
“But we can settle the other question right here.”

“What do you mean . . . ?”

Gray didn’t wait. He didn’t answer her question, half
stammered out with her hazel eyes so wide they looked like summer gold.

He used his free hand to cup her cheek, flushed and smooth
beneath his palm. Then he bent—only a little, which struck him as unexpectedly
hot—to take her mouth with his.

Gray had only meant to kiss her to make a point. The way a
gentleman might, not that he’d ever met too many gentlemen out here where the
mountains and the land were the only things that mattered.

But Abby’s lips were soft and velvety beneath his. And she
made a tiny sound in the back of her throat that he could feel like a
flickering flame.

Before he knew it, Gray was angling his head to one side and
licking his way into her mouth.

As if he couldn’t help himself.

And everything got hot. Bright. Impossible.

This was Abby Douglas. Abby Douglas. There was something
deliciously wrong about it being Abby that made it hotter, wilder.

It rolled in him and made a joke of him imagining he was in
control of any of this. Of her.

Of this sudden storm of sensation that would have taken him
off his feet, if that didn’t mean he would have had to let go of her.

When the door slapped open, both of his hands were sunk deep
into her hair, and Abby was up on her toes, pressed against him, her arms
wrapped around his back.

It turned out Gray wasn’t going to have to worry about
easing his way into some or other form of eventual chemistry with the woman he
already knew would make him a good rancher’s wife.

He felt her tremble. And there was something about the way
she melted into him as their lips touched, then brushed, as if she was being
pulled by some kind of magnetic force.

What the hell to do with all this chemistry—so much it was
like a lightning storm and he kept getting hit—with a woman he’d never paid the
slightest attention to until his father’s funeral.

The fact that the front door had opened penetrated the heat
and fog that was swirling around him.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:USA Today-bestselling, RITA-nominated, and
critically-acclaimed author Caitlin Crews has written more
than seventy-five books, including Frenemies, Princess from
the Past, A Royal Without Rules, and Undone by the
Sultan's Touch. She's won fans with her romance, Harlequin Presents,
women's fiction, chick lit, and work-for-hire young adult novels, many of which
she writes as Megan Crane (including the dystopian Viking romance Edge series).
These days her focus is on contemporary romance in all its forms, from small
town heat to international glamour, cowboys to bikers to military men and
beyond. She's taught creative writing classes in places like UCLA Extension's
prestigious Writers' Program, gives assorted workshops on occasion, and
attempts to make use of the MA and PhD in English Literature she received from
the University of York in York, England. She currently lives in the Pacific
Northwest with a husband who draws comics and animation storyboards, and their
menagerie of ridiculous animals.

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I am married with two grown children, I have two dogs and three cats, I collect vintage paperbacks, I read, and write reviews, blog, promote across social media. I am a top Amazon and Goodreads reviewer.

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